The Tunnel

The Tunnel

By Anthony Browne

When I think of books that made an impact on me as a child, one of the books that comes to mind the fastest is The Tunnel by Anthony Browne. This is a story of a brother and sister who are opposite in every way. The brother is rambunctious and extroverted. The sister is timid and introverted. And because they are so different, they fight. All the time. One day, their mom sends them out to play together, wanting them to get along, just once.

They go to play in a vacant lot, where the brother finds a tunnel. He crawls inside. The sister waits and worries, and then finally decides to follow him. She crawls through the tunnel and comes out in a dark forest. She walks, and as the forest gets darker and scarier, she starts to run. Soon she comes to a clearing and finds her brother, turned to stone. She reaches her arms around him and hugs him, sobbing. Pretty soon the stone becomes softer and warmer. Her brother is alive.

Maybe it was just because of my age when I first heard this story (maybe four or five years old?), but I still remember the feeling of the bottom dropping out of my stomach when the teacher reading the story turned the page to show the brother turned to stone. This story deals with sibling relationships in a unique way, showing the importance of love between siblings. Pretty dramatic setting for sibling relations, too! The artwork in this book is beautiful (as is the artwork in all of Anthony Browne’s books). I highly recommend The Tunnel!